Twisted by Uvi Poznansky Read Free Book Online Page B

hiss.
    “What’s the fuss?” I ask. “Did I ask you to catch mice? Look here, for crying out loud, look inside already!”
    And with that, I thread my long, flexible tail directly into the handle of the pantry door. It gives way, it opens with the usual creak, and there, on the lowest shelf, is that thing I learned to crave: A can with a lovely whiskered face on it.
    She picks it up. I wait. I do not meow.
    Now she embarks on shuffling stuff in the drawer. The hunger grows in me as the clink and the clank rise higher and higher, as spiky and prickly as rage. Finally she digs out a shiny tool and then, snap! She sticks it into the thing, right there between those whiskers.
    And with that one blow, the aroma! Ah, tinged with blood, it spreads instantly, all over the place. Is she a killer, I ask myself. Is she is a killer, too?
    Full of awe, I watch her closely as she labors to cut the thing open. I study her from one side, then from the other, only to catch her shooting a little glint at me from the corner of her eye. I can see that she is calculating, with a little smile, the twisting of her knife.
    Alas, in this place, my hunger puts me at her mercy. So she is using this particular moment, I figure, to play a cruel game with me, a game of measure for measure: a measure of her skill with the knife against the measure of the pain in my stomach. Her power against my need.
    Her lips curl up, as if to say, Let me hear you purr, will you? No?
    Her skin hangs under her chin and around her neck like a delicate necklace, wrinkle upon wrinkle, and her face is fallen. I can, without too much effort, use my bad eye to erase—if only for a squint—the marks of time on her. For that brief second I find in her the playful, if not innocent, face of a kitten.
    “What happened? You swallowed your tongue?” she asks teasingly. “You’re as quiet as a mouse!”
    My stomach growls, so I just crouch there, staring helplessly at her knife.
    “This place,” she casts a look around her. “Oh my, it gave me the creeps at first. I mean, no one told me it came not only with furniture, but with a pet, too.”
    In place of an answer I claw her leg, because hell, I am more than some useless old nicknack. Beware. I am dangerous.
    So to sooth me, she goes, “Oh my, such an adorable tail! I love it, I do!”
    And I go, “No you don’t. You hate me, but not half as much as I hate you... Food! Quick, miss,” I hiss. “I’m dying here!”
    Perhaps she gets what I say, because now she heaps the food on a plate and then, at long last, sets it before me. I tear into it. I lick the plate clean. I pass my tongue over my paws. I wipe my whiskers clean.
    But I never meow.
    I hop onto the counter. She has left the knife here, so I inch closer, just to sniff it—but then, the sight of whiskers from the metallic surface makes me cautious.
    Wait, where is she now? Oh, there! Beating a full retreat, she is making her way back to the couch. I come closer, rubbing myself against her feet, as happy and bushy-tailed as I allow myself to be. I feel stronger now. Bushy-tailed or not, the clump of fuzz is about to fall off my rear end—but in spite of this I feel invincible.
    With the single exception of the main door, which is locked, there is no door here I cannot push open. She knows it. She knows there is no point in hiding from me.
    I glance at the window. Between the smudges and through the layers of dust, fragments of murky sky are getting darker. I curl up beside her, rub against her skin for warmth and, with my eyes nearly closed, I rock my head to and fro with a long, sweeping motion. These days, there is nothing I like better than licking myself.
    She shrinks away, while at the same time making pronounced efforts to ignore me.
    With every instinct in me I know one thing for sure: despite her silence, which is an insult to my pride; despite her looking away in every possible direction, at this corner then the other; and despite the failing light, she